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whether the ends justify the means because the other strategies to unify the nation may have had equally bad consequences. The value of uniting the country makes this a problem of dirty hands because the leaders involved had to make an ethically questionable decision for what they believed would promote the greater good. Hollis argues that politics is the art of compromise, and "the best is the enemy of the good."
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was close, but also that it was so frightening. Here was a supreme emergency where one might well be required to override the rights of innocent people and shatter the war convention. Given the view of Nazism that I am assuming, the issue takes this form: should I wager this determinate crime (the killing of innocent people) against that immeasurable evil (a Nazi triumph)?
142:
not to warn the people of
Coventry that the Germans were planning a massive air raid on their city. At first glance it seems wrong that he would send no warning, but had he done so, the Germans would have known that the British had broken their Enigma cypher, which Hollis argues Churchill believed to
41:
concerns whether political leaders and those in similar positions can ever be justified in committing even gravely immoral actions when "dirtying their hands" in this way is necessary for realizing some important moral or political end, such as the preservation of a community's continued existence or
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explored the problem of dirty hands in less hyperbolic situations, more the everyday necessities of political life than the extraordinary undertakings of defending one's community from outright destruction: "t is a predictable and probable hazard of public life that there will be these situations in
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as an example. The act of committing murder under trust was a punishable offense and the order "should not have been given nor, once given, obeyed." However, Hollis points out the utilitarian value of making a "bloody example" as a warning to the other chieftains. He said this was not a question of
105:
t does seem to me that the more certain a German victory appeared to be in the absence of a bomber offensive, the more justifiable was the decision to launch the offensive. It is not just that such a victory was frightening, but also that it seemed in those years very close; it is not just that it
101:" in which a political community's continued existence is in imminent danger, its leaders might be obligated to dirty their hands and sanction gravely immoral actions for the sake of saving the community. Discussing the British bombing campaigns against German cities from 1940-1942, Walzer wrote:
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the prevention of imminent societal catastrophe. If political actors can be so justified, a paradox or contradiction seems to emerge because it appears that these actors can, or even must, carry out actions that are,
115:
which something morally disagreeable is clearly required. To refuse on moral grounds ever to do anything of that sort is more than likely to mean that one cannot seriously pursue even the moral ends of politics".
155:—a related concept, the state of exception involves the suspension of the rule of law, which can be compared to the suspension of the rule of morality in "supreme emergencies"
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94:, in which Hoederer speaks of having dirty hands up to his elbows, then asks, "But what do you hope? Do you think you can govern innocently?"
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Another example of the problem of dirty hands Hollis mentions is the decision
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Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral
Argument with Historical Illustrations
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The
International Encyclopedia of Ethics's entry on "Dirty Hands"
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Though the discourse on dirty hands goes back as far as
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Bernard
Williams, "Politics and Moral Character", in
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56:. The problem of dirty hands lies at the point where
50:of the kind popularized by the television series,
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278:(Spring 2014 Edition), edited by Edward N. Zalta.
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84:and other thinkers. The term itself comes from
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